Blue illustrated bird on yellow background with red signature text and matte finish

David Berman was an American musician, poet, and artist most well known for his involvement in the indie-rock band Silver Jews (1989-2009). Berman was a beloved songwriter and has long been known for his lyrics. He was also a poet, publishing one work of poetry “Actual Air,” and an artist, with the cartoon collection “The Portable February.”  In 2009, Berman retired from music, as he believed his work could never live up to the wrongs done by his estranged father Richard Berman, a gun, tobacco, and alcohol lobbyist. He returned to music in 2018 as a co-producer and in May 2019, under the moniker Purple Mountains, released new music for the first time in over a decade.

Berman died on August 7, 2019 at the age of 52. The day after his death, an informal memorial was held by his friends outside the Met Breuer Museum in New York City.

The bird drawing is a piece of art work completed by Berman just before his death.

The lyrics “you can't change the feeling but you can change your feeling about the feelings in a second or two” are from the song “People” on the Silver Jews 1998 album “American Water.”

This button was manufactured by the Busy Beaver Button Co.

White and green text on black background.

“The Boss” was the motto Hitachi used in the 1980s. Hitachi is an international conglomerate company, well known in the United States for its departments that included power and hand tools. “The Boss can be bought” is a statement saying that their tools can be bought and to suggest that they were the “boss” of tools at the time. 

Hitachi was found in 1948 and manufactured coal mining machinery and equipment and power tools. They began selling their items in the United States in 1973 and the brand was changed to Metabo HPT in 2018 to give its power and hand tools a new look.

Red badge with gray scale circle containing hand holding wrench over laurel wreath illustration and text. Hole in button for name to slide in.

Studebaker was one of the longest-lived independent cars in America. The company began in the 1850s making wagons and wagon hardware for others. They supplied wagons to gold rush era ‘49ers, pioneers, and the Union army during the Civil War. Studebaker built and sold their first car, an electric, in 1902. Gasoline cars came two years later. Wagon production ended in 1919. Studebaker prospered in the 1920s, survived the 1930s, but had financial trouble after 1950. Production ended in 1963 and 1966 in the United States and Canada respectively.

Studebaker had two degrees of certification: Studebaker Qualified Mechanic and Studebaker Master Mechanic. The company issued regular Service Bulletins with quizzes. Once you passed, you could wear this ID Badge on your shop coat or a lapel pin on your suit jacket. It is thought that the Studebaker certification process was similar to the ASE certification program that mechanics take today. ID Badges were manufactured so that instead of creating one new badge for an individual every time someone passed into the program, the company could create badges in bulk and insert the name of the individual into the blank space behind the window.

Green text on yellow background

Unifix Cubes are a teaching aid that is in a form of interlocking cubes and trays. They are tools for elementary students to use for math activities in the classroom. The cubes were invented by Charles Tacey in 1953. The patent of Unifix Cubes was renewed in 2013 and they are still being used in schools today. Common in a box of Unifix Cubes are 600 total cubes, 2 Box sets of 300 Unifix counting cubes, 10 colors, 30 pieces of each color in each box. Also usually in a box is a 15 page activities booklet with information about Patterns Counting, Ordering/Sequencing, Graphing, Estimation, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division. There are many free printable activity guides available online.

Gaining popularity in the second half of the twentieth century, Unifix cubes are prevalent in mathematics education and now growing in language arts and grammar. Manipulating an object allows a user to learn through an developmentally appropriate hands on experience. With continual use of manipulative objects, such as UnIfix Cubes, for mathematics education in the classroom, the user can gain an understanding of math at a conceptual level.

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White text on brown image of chocolate kiss with dot in the I also an illustration of a chocolate kiss, all on a white background.

“How about a Kiss?” was an advertising slogan used by the Hershey Company for their Hershey’s Kisses product. Hershey’s was founded in 1884 and introduced Kisses into the market in 1907. Advertising for their products began in 1970 in response to their diminishing sales and the success of their main competitor, Mars. Hershey’s and Mars had a long standing rivalry, known as the “Bars Wars”, prompting Hershey’s to increase their advertising in order to beat out Mars as the number one chocolate company. A national advertising campaign for Hershey’s Kisses tripled sales between 1977 and 1984.

Illustration of cold penguin with black text on white background.

First Alert is a company that makes safety products based in Aurora, Illinois.They make fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, and electronic timers that can be programed to be automatically set thermostats including the AutoStat. The company works with fire awareness programs in the United States and provides fire safety products to families in need.

The AutoStat electronic timer can be added on to either round or rectangle thermostats that cannot be automatically set by themselves. They are set at preselected times that can run on two cycles per day and can be programed for weekends with a 5/2 arrangement. The AutoStat avoids electrical failures by running on batteries so they are independent of power lines.